[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!
Melanie Faith
Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.
Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.
The Society of Professional Journalists
In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.
I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.
Maxine Greene
Philosopher and Education Scholar
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Living the Comma #32
1000 Words of Summer. Andrea Gibson. Our Bodies.
Dear Writer Friends,
I started a two-week writing challenge, 1000 Words of Summer, this past Saturday. The challenge — started in 2018 by author Jami Attenberg — asks participants to write 1000 words a day. No constraints. No boundaries. No excuses. Simply write 1000 words a day between May 30th and June 12th. Each day, an essay written by an accomplished author is shared for writing inspiration and advice.
I began by writing a game plan — a loose outline of writing goals — to work on during the two weeks. My first goal is to reestablish my journaling practice, which has withered on the 2026 vine. My second goal is to finish the final few entries of the MONDAYS ARE FREE writing exercises which I began in February of 2025. My third goal is to draft a fellowship application that is due on June 22.
I am sharing 1000 Words of Summer here to invite us to think about what we do to develop our writing practice, to remember what inspires us to write, to connect us with words and stories at a deliberate pace.
Conversations With Writers — Andrea Gibson
I was introduced to Andrea Gibson in Jane Ratcliffe’s Beyond newsletter community. “Becoming Love: A Conversation with Andrea Gibson, Part I,” “Becoming Love: A Conversation With Andrea Gibson, Part II.” Their two-part Beyond conversation broke my heart open and made me consider life more deeply. Hearing of their passing on July 14, 2025, I immediately sought solace in their words. They comfort and shine a light on what it means to be human and in love with our world and all the joy and sorrow it contains.
Craft Advice with Andrea Gibson
A Writing Prompt
Yes. Something I enjoy doing—I just said enjoy, but I haven’t done it since cancer, I don’t think—is I would write a love letter from the part of my body that I love the least to the part of my body that I love the most or vice versa.
I’ve given this prompt to lots of people and I very often share it with youth. It’s so beautiful what people write. One young girl wrote about how the part of her body she loved the most were her eyelashes because they were so light and her eyelashes wrote a love letter to her heavy heart. She was trying to teach her heavy heart about lightness. — Andrea Gibson
I am jumping into the flow of 1000 Words of Summer. Putting existential exhaustion aside, or perhaps looking for a cure within the creative process. Heading in the direction of curiosity and joy and story. Building something with my mind and heart and hands.
From the heart of the comma,
Katie
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About Katie
From Louisville. Live in Atlanta. Curious by nature. Researcher by education. Writer by practice. Grateful heart by desire.
Buy the Book!
The Stage Is On Fire, a memoir about hope and change, reasons for voyaging, and dreams burning down can be purchased on Amazon.
